The Authorized Personnel
by elwisty
Summary: Companion story to 'Before the Wedding'. Marshall Flinkman receives a visitor.


He had never suspected that his subconscious would be this much of a jerk. When he had considered in what form his id would appear, he had always imagined it to be almost exactly like himself, except not as smart and more intuitive – not to mention friendly. Cheerful. Ready to give a pat on the back to Consciousness, if Consciousness ever happened to be a feeling bit depressed.

The hallucination leant back in Marshall's chair, and rested his chin on his hand. "Just how old are you?"

"One hundred and nine years, eight months, seven hours and -"

The shadow Arvin Sloane (the Sloane Clone mark two? The Arvinator Three?) stared at him. Marshall stopped talking, suddenly feeling much more like a thirty-six point zero year old lonely geek than like a centenarian with twelve grandchildren, thirty great grandchildren and half a great-great-grandchild, since Lizzie was expecting in March.

"Look, are you sure you're a hallucination?"

"It's your mind that's created me. You have to ask yourself that question." The ghost drawled in exactly the same bored way he had back in the briefings at SD6, as if merely talking to Marshall was more tedium than a man could be expected to bear. He was even wearing his green-framed spectacles. It was like watching _Return of the Jedi_ with Obi Wan replaced by an evil, half-shaven megalomaniac. And those spectacles! He'd completely forgotten about them, and he remembered thinking once, after Sloane was dead, that he'd see them in his nightmares for the rest of his life. But his life had been so interesting, so full of things to do and take care of, that in the end even the memory of the spectacles had faded away to nothing almost as quickly as the pain in his hands.

Marshall paused. "I am asking myself that question. Because I'm asking you. Or me. Or us. Whatever. Look, if you're me, you'd know everything about me. I could ask you a question that only I know the answer to and –"

"Not knowing the answer wouldn't prove anything. True, maybe I wouldn't know the answer because I'm in fact the man you knew – but it's also possible that your mind prevents me from answering, because it merely wants you to believe in my reality. I'm disappointed in you."

"So why would my subconscious produce you? I mean, no offence, but if I'm going to imagine dead people, there are loads I'd prefer to see. Syd, Jack, Vaughn, Dixon, Weiss, Rachel, Izzy – and my wife, of course," he added, and resisted the temptation to look around behind him just in case she was there and was angry with him for not putting her ahead of his friends. "And Mitchell. I'd love to see him just one more time. Just once, you know. He had the cutest smile ever. You can't turn into him, can you?"

A tilt of the shoulders. "Unlikely. I'm sorry about your son."

"He was only sixty. I thought he'd live forever."

"That would probably have been unpleasant for him."

"I didn't – really mean that literally. I mean I get it – it isn't much fun, being alone, I mean – almost all my friends are dead – in fact, it's pretty horrible. Sometimes. But it's not like I don't have a choice. I mean, there's still lots of wonderful stuff going on. There are my kids and their kids and their kids' kids. And the science is amazing. Just unbelievable. The tech guys these days – well, they make me feel like at the CIA I was Ugga the Caveman hitting computers with rocks to get them to work. Not really. I was good. But –"

"- Marshall, please _focus_. I need you to –" The ghost cut himself off and peered round at the door, expectantly. A few seconds later, Marshall heard the footsteps approaching. His hearing aides both clearly needed work. So much for the claim on the box that they were more sensitive than the average human ear. If you want something done well, you have to do it yourself.

It was his favourite granddaughter-in-law who knocked. His heart beat faster. Dimly, he remembered Carrie reading Beauty and the Beast to baby Lola. How the merchant had returned home praying that it would be the dog or the cat that came to meet him, and not Beauty.

"Hey. Were you talking to someone?" Lin tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. She did that when she was worried. She worried a lot these days, even after he told her about the Berlin sporking incident.

"Er – did you hear me talking to someone? I mean, did you hear someone talking to me? Other than me, that is?"

"No, I only heard your voice. Have you been working too hard again?"

"You know me. Gotta keep busy." He tried to stop his gaze from sliding away from Lin's face and towards the chair the ghost was occupying. If Lin looked to her right, she would – should – might – see him, although he was partially screened from view by the open door. He could ask…? But then she might not – or she might and that would be worse because _he_ might – no, she needed to go away. Fast.

"There's such a thing as overdoing it. You've missed your retirement date by fifty years, after all."

"I'm just sitting here reading the latest uh – Good News pamphlet. Jesus Loves Me. Nice. So you see I'm not at all stressed. Not at all. Promise. Don't worry about me. By the way, have you watered the tulips? I was, you know, just sitting here and looking at your beautiful plants and thinking it would be a shame if the tulips all died."

"You can't see the tulips from here. They're in the pots at the front."

"Tulips? Did I say tulips? I meant grass. The grass was looking kinda brown. Not that it's your fault. It's the bi-centennial fluctuation in the Santa Ana that's responsible. Tell you the truth, I'm amazed there's any grass left at all. Bye!"

"Well – take care then. Ring if you want anything." Sometimes Marshall thought he'd been wasted in Tech: Agent Flinkman, Field Ops; that had a good ring to it.

The ghost had removed his glasses and seemed to be following the exchange without any marked interest. When the door was at last closed and Lin's footsteps were receding, he rose and walked briskly across to stand between the window and Marshall's wheelchair. From inside his jacket, he produced a slim black folder. The same kind they'd used at SD-6. The ghost dropped it on the desk.

"Your assignment. I require information, plans, passwords, the names, numbers and details of the security, the locations of any automated defences and tripwires – I need to know everything about that building and the people inside."

Cautiously, he turned to the first page. It showed the head of a bald eagle mounted over a shield bearing a sixteen-point compass.

"You want me to hack into the old HQ?"

"Not exactly. Only the wing that's open to the public. You've still got your security permit. This is child's play, compared to your previous work."

Marshall snapped the folder shut. He was tempted to throw it out of the window, which would be the kind of stylish thing that someone like Syd or Izzy might have done.

"No. No way. Never. I don't care if you're real or not. I'm not doing it."

The ghost rubbed his temples. "I understand your initial reaction. However -" Sloane leaned forward and crouched down, so that they were eye to eye; his right hand was resting on the folder, the other was gripping the wheelchair's right armrest in a gesture too firm to be friendly. Marshall leaned back and snatched his own right hand away. If he could've wheeled away to the other side of the room, or better yet out of the door and into the nearest taxi to someplace not here, he would've. "_However," _Sloane repeated wearily, "you will do what I am asking. Eventually. You want to. You remember how much you enjoyed the challenges you encountered. How satisfying it was to get the better of a system – break it, trick it, turn it in on itself. Let people think they've won, then strike at them from an angle they never even knew existed."

"You had me tortured. You tortured Rachel. You were going to have us killed. You shot Jack. And – uh – you're really sounding a hell of lot like the Sloane I knew. I'm pretty sure that stuff's not in my subconscious." The ghost stared briefly, almost uncomprehendingly, at his hand, and then removed it and – Marshall was relieved – took a step back.

"Sloane did all those things, and – as you know – Sydney Bristow shot him. Several times. Once through the head." He touched a spot in the centre of his forehead. "He's dead."

"You sure look like him. And you act like him. And you look pretty solid." Maybe he had a Flux Capacitor? They probably didn't really exist, but in his experience, one could cram quite a lot of weird stuff into the gap between 'probably' and 'absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent not'.

"We've been through this, Marshall. Hallucinations can be very convincing. Remember Jack. How he-"

"– hallucinated the doctor that could cure him. And then – ah – almost got killed because he thought he had the cure when he was really poisoning himself."

"I promise you, I'm not trying to poison you." He smiled, which was much scarier than a frown would have been. "Naturally, you will see me tomorrow. And you will see me the next day and the day after that until you have done your job. One thing I am not short of is time. Good luck."

He was a punctual ghost. The following day, at thirteen hundred hours precisely, he walked into the study.

"Well?"

"I'm not doing it. You can forget about it. I mean – hack into the Agency – it's crazy – why would I want to do that?"

The hallucination folded his arms and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He didn't seem angry. At last, he shrugged. "So be it, then. It was a slim chance, in any case. As you said, technology has made huge advances since you were in your prime."

"I – did I say that? But, you know, I may have been exaggerating a little -"

The Sloanalike shook his head and, with an almost fatherly air this time, touched the wheelchair's armrest. "You're a hundred and nine, Marshall. You can't expect to be as capable as you were at thirty. It's nothing to be ashamed about."

His subconscious was a condescending bastard. How stupid did it think he was? True, he had, in fact, done what he had been asked, and the information was now sitting in his desk draw, stored in an original APO file that he'd hung on to for old times' sake. But he had no intention of simply handing it over. "Tomorrow," he said. "I'll have everything ready for you tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"Hey – one thing – before you go -" And before Marshall went. He and Lin and the Flea Circus, her four children, were going on a surprise holiday to Toronto; the flight would leave that evening.

"Yes?"

"Do you think he regretted torturing me?"

The ghost stared at him in the familiar way; even without the glasses, his eyes were unreadable, blank like a cinema screen when the projector is switched off. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I suspect that – if he regretted anything – then considering his list of crimes, leaving you with some slight scarring round the fingers would get little if any of his attention."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's sounds about right."

"And, you see, I must be a hallucination. Would the real Arvin Sloane ever have been so frank with you?"

"I guess not."

They both hesitated.

"Tomorrow then."

"No. I mean, yes, tomorrow. Absolutely. Tomorrow."

When he was gone, Marshall took out the APO file. Authorized Personnel Only. It wasn't called that anymore: the name was changed after the subway bomb that destroyed the original sign on the entrance along with everything else. But Izzy had once told him that the new briefing room was decorated with a few photos of the original team: Jack was there, and Dixon and Vaughn and Sydney.

He wished Sydney were here to advise him. He wished she were simply here. Or Jack. Jack had never been afraid of anything, least of all Sloane. It occurred to him that while Jack Bristow had long ago become one with the Force, there was someone whom he could talk to.

He got hold of his latest secure phone and dialled the number from memory. The day he had to look up a number would be the day they paramedics carried him away in a body bag. After three rings, a warm voice answered:

"Hi, Uncle Marshall."

"Hey, Jack. Still hanging on in there?"

"I'm not out of the game yet. That champagne will be mine." Their bet had been running for three years now, having begun after Jack went into remission. It was a bet Marshall hoped he would lose. "It's funny you called. I was just about to phone you."

"Look, Jack – I need to talk to you. About hallucinations. And maybe Flux Capacitors."


End file.
